


Some Things Get Better With Age

by Mums_the_Word



Series: pre-series AU [9]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Murder, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mums_the_Word/pseuds/Mums_the_Word
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal Caffrey is wanted for murder and Peter Burke is asked to help hunt him down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Things Get Better With Age

**Author's Note:**

> As with all my fictions in this series, this one can be read independently.  
> Many thanks to Treon for the beta.

       Peter Burke was in a funk. He knew that Neal Caffrey had returned to the city; the latest Wells Fargo robbery attested to that. It had been a clean, slick job that netted the “perpetrator” over two million in cash. Even though the Bureau had the serial numbers of the bills, they could easily be laundered overseas. The FBI had beefed up the task force known as the “James Bonds” team, but there were absolutely no leads. Peter had been waiting for Caffrey to contact him so that the annoying punk could do a little chest pounding regarding how clever the crime was, as well as “whoever” had managed to pull it off. But the call never came.

      Elizabeth noted Peter’s dour face one evening and said, “You know, Peter, you look like a parent waiting for a letter from camp that never comes, even though the parent sent along self-addressed stamped envelopes with his kid.”

      Peter winced. Was he that transparent? His and Neal’s relationship was complicated on so many levels. The young conman had managed to wriggle his way into Peter’s life, and he really didn’t know how to feel about that. Neal was a dichotomy of black and white, of good and bad. Sometimes Peter had trouble separating the two.

      Eventually a call did come in, but it was so far out of left field that Peter felt blindsided. The Los Angeles division of the FBI had contacted the New York office, and Peter specifically, regarding a theft and murder out West in Tinsel Town. Audrey Winfield, the venerable 85-year-old screen star from the 1950s had been murdered in her Brentwood home. She had been brutally bludgeoned with a wine bottle in the kitchen of her cottage. The spectacular blue sapphire and diamond necklace made especially for her decades ago by the esteemed jeweler, Harry Winston, was missing. The police had a suspect….....Neal Caffrey.

      After Hughes gave him an “I told you so” look, Peter caught the next cross-country flight to Los Angeles. He was met by his counterpart at the airport and taken to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to deposit his belongings. Then he was whisked downtown to be briefed on the facts of the case.

      Audrey Winfield was a well-known actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood, with two Oscars to her credit for her critically acclaimed performances in films that also won Oscars. She had been married for over fifty years to a fellow actor, but was now a widow living alone in Brentwood. She and her husband never had any children, and there was no other family that anyone knew of. Although out of the public spotlight, she was hardly a recluse. Just a week before, she had attended a special gala at the Palladium that honored many esteemed performers of by-gone cinema. Peter was shown footage of her being escorted to the event. Although projecting bird-like fragility, the actress managed to stand erect and proud in a white sequined gown with those magnificent jewels adorning her neck. Adorning her arm was none other than Neal Caffrey!

      The conman was decked out in a sleek contemporary tuxedo and looked like he belonged in movies. Hollywood would have embraced his striking good looks that rivaled the handsomeness of a young Montgomery Clift or George Hamilton. Peter had never really seen Neal in formal attire before, so he was struck by the mature image he projected. Peter knew that Neal was a chameleon, and here was actual proof of his ability to transform into the necessary persona.

      With deferential attentiveness, Neal had led Miss Winfield to and from her seat to the podium so that she could accept a life accomplishment award and give a short speech. He stayed with her throughout dinner and then accompanied her home. According to neighbors who saw his black Maserati in the driveway, he had remained there with her on two consecutive nights. Two days after that, the actress’s body had been discovered by the weekly maid.

      Caffrey’s finger prints were found throughout the kitchen, and most damningly, on the neck of the wine bottle that had smashed into Miss Winfield’s skull. They were not, however, found anywhere on the wall safe in her bedroom which the murderer had drilled open to access. Undoubtedly, the safe had contained her necklace because it was nowhere to be found anywhere in the house. The police had come out in rabid force to take down this scum who had harmed one of their icons. There had been a few sightings of Caffrey, but they could never apprehend him. Why they thought that Peter could help was beyond his reasoning. Nonetheless, here he was, willing to do whatever he could, but heartsick about the whole thing.

      This unimaginable scenario really rocked Peter’s world. He began to doubt his gut feeling about people. He sincerely thought that he knew Caffrey, but apparently he didn’t. Maybe if he had been more determined and diligent in his pursuit of the young criminal, he would have reached him before he went off the rails and added murder to his mayhem. Later, while sitting alone in his hotel room, he kept looking at the crime scenes photos over and over again. There were many things that bothered him. Maybe he needed a break and fresh eyes. Peter suddenly realized that he had not eaten since early breakfast in Brooklyn. Shrugging out of his shoulder holster, he removed his gun and locked it securely in the room safe. Leaving his FBI badge on the desk, he left the room to get dinner in the hotel lobby restaurant.

      An hour later, Peter trudged back to his room, unlocked the door with his keycard and flipped on the lights. Looking up, he was astounded to come face to face with Neal Caffrey seated in front of the room’s sliding glass doors with Peter’s pistol in his hand. That pistol was very menacingly pointed at Peter’s chest.

      “Hello, Peter,” Neal began calmly.

      Peter eyed the threat and answered dryly, “Hello, Neal. Does going rogue necessitate adding another murder to your resume? Taking down an FBI agent may not be quite as easy as killing a frail old woman.”

      Neal didn’t react to the taunt. Instead he demanded that Peter toss him his cell phone, then sit in the chair next to the heavy oak desk in the room. After Neal had deftly removed the phone’s battery, he then tossed the agent a pair of his own handcuffs.

     “Cuff your right wrist to the leg of the desk, Peter, after you throw me the key,” Neal dictated

      Since Neal was most certainly in charge of this encounter, Peter did as he was told, then leaned back defiantly in the chair to regard his captor through narrowed eyes.

      “You know, Caffrey, you’re definitely in the right place because you’ve got star quality. Yes sir, you most certainly do! Your spectacular award-winning performance as a misguided, misunderstood young kid with a good heart deserves a standing ovation. Excuse me if I don’t applaud, but my hands are a bit restricted at the moment!” Peter’s eyes and voice were hard.

      Neal had relaxed the tenseness in his body a bit as he too leaned back in his chair. The gun now lay casually in his lap. “Well, now that we have the sarcasm and insults out of the way, Peter, we have to talk. I need your help to clear my name because I did _not_ do this!”

      Peter was incredulous. “Holding me at gunpoint is one hell of a way to gain my attention or my help, Neal!”

      “I realize it’s a bit drastic, but this situation calls for drastic measures, Peter. Just hear me out, okay?” Neal had his innocent look in place, bright blue eyes wide and beseeching.

      “It’s not as if I have a choice, now do I?” Peter asked nastily.

      “Yes, well, try to keep up, Peter, and don’t let your mind wander,” Neal began.

      Peter interrupted before Neal could continue. “Caffrey, one day you won’t see it coming, but trust me, it _will_ happen that one day you’ll unsuspectingly feel my hands around your neck, and I’ll be squeezing because you’ve snapped my last nerve!!” Peter’s blood pressure was rising.

      Neal sighed dramatically and waited a beat before beginning his narrative.

     “So, hypothetically, Nick Halden may have been contacted a while back regarding a job that was being subbed out through a middleman here in California.”

      “Stop with the ‘hypotheticals,’ Neal, and just spit it out. It’s not as if I’m hearing your confession of murder. I’m not, am I?” Peter asked apprehensively.

      Neal ignored him and continued. “Since things were getting a bit hot back East because of a determined FBI agent who shall remain nameless in this story, I decided to come to California to see what the assignment entailed. The middleman had been hired by an unnamed sponsor who wished to acquire the sapphire and diamond necklace belonging to Audrey Winfield.

      I did some research into Miss Winfield and the information that I gleaned was that she was exceedingly old, exceedingly wealthy, had no heirs, and was intending to leave all of her assets to the Academy of Motion Pictures upon her death. Well, I considered that a waste of a very valuable antique and agreed to avail myself of the trinket, turn it over to the middleman, and collect a substantial fee for my trouble. To that end, when gala time came around, I presented myself as her escort from the service she sometimes used for public events.

      “Yeah, I saw you rockin’ the formal wear, Caffrey,” Peter snarked.

      “Anyway,” Neal continued unperturbed, “after I took her home she turned to me and just laughed, and that wasn’t so good for my ego, Peter, let me tell you. She was one shrewd lady, or ‘savvy old dame,’ in her words. She looked me in the eye without an ounce of fear and told me that she knew that I was there to steal her jewels!

      I guess my mouth must have been hanging open because she told me not to be upset because it took a con to recognize another con. Miss Winfield said that the greatest con artists in the world were actors because they had to make the audience really believe that they were the characters that they were playing. They had to ‘sell it for all they were worth’ in her words. And in her estimation she was one of the best at doing that.

      She was really blasé about the whole thing, Peter. Like I said, not one trace of panic. She claimed that she was too old to be afraid of anything anymore. Then she told me to make her a drink…a gin gimlet. I actually had to ask her what went into it since those things were definitely before my time. She offered me one, too, but it sort of smelled like perfume so I stuck with wine.”

      “Neal, you’re digressing. Just get on with the story,” Peter demanded.

      “Well, we just talked, Peter, for hours and hours. She had some great stories about the old actors and actresses that she had worked with on pictures. Some of the stuff they got away with makes today’s divas look tame. Then she reminisced about her life with her husband. He was the great love of her life and he was devoted to her.” Neal looked wistful and Peter just knew he was thinking about Kate.

      Neal eventually continued. “The only thing that she regretted was not having children, even though they had tried. The years went by and they put money aside as roles began to dry up for them. They thought that they had invested wisely for their retirement in the dot com industry, but we all know how that turned out. They still had a nest egg and owned their home, but Miss Winfield’s husband eventually developed cancer, and she spent a small fortune on home health for him so that she could be by his side when he finally died. The recession in this decade halved what was left of her savings, so she took out a reverse mortgage on her estate to enable her to still remain where she had been happiest for almost all of her life. She could manage on this for her upkeep, but not for the substantial taxes that she had to pay each year. So, two years ago, she had a very discreet New York jewelry artist make her paste copies of the gems in her necklace and then swap out the real ones. He had overseas connections, so the sale was off the grid here in the States, and Miss Winfield had successfully replenished her nest egg and could keep up appearances.”

      “Are you certain that the jewelry was really fake, Neal?” Peter asked.

      “Yeah. I had brought my own loupe and when I looked at the necklace, the large sapphire and every diamond surrounding it were manmade,” Neal answered confidently. “The only thing of real value in that house, Peter, was her collection of all her old black and white movies on reels stored in a home theatre room that she had. There was a projector all set up and aimed at the big screen, and she told me that this is where she spent every night. It was really cool, Peter. We sat there for hours, just me and her and her pitcher of gin gimlets while movie after movie played. Miss Winfield told me what I already knew; she would be leaving all of her memorabilia to the Academy of Motion Pictures after her death. Until then, she spent every night reliving her glory days until dawn when she went to bed.”

      “But you went back a second night, Neal, didn’t you?” Peter asked. “Why would you do that?”

      Neal looked a bit embarrassed as he shrugged, “She was a really nice lady, Peter, and she was ……lonely.”

      Peter watched Neal closely and thought to himself that for a brief period of time there had been _two_ less lonely people in the world. This was the Neal Caffrey that he knew, not some homicidal monster as he was painted by the Los Angeles authorities.

      “I had my doubts that you were responsible for her death,” Peter began as Neal looked at him with a dubious expression.

      “Well, let’s just say that I had doubts because the evidence didn’t add up to a Caffrey escapade,” Peter continued. “For one thing, why would someone who is obsessive compulsive, and who has just committed murder, leave incriminating fingerprints on the actual murder weapon? And then there was a drilled safe…….”

      Before he could conclude that sentence, Neal chimed in, “Seriously, Peter! The safe was an ancient Meilink, a three number combination at best, which I could have cracked in my sleep. And, for the record, I do not have OCD. I’m just painstakingly thorough,” Neal huffed.

      Peter waved his free hand and muttered, “Whatever!” Then he asked very seriously, “Did you tell the middleman who hired you that the necklace was an imitation, Neal?”

      Neal looked stricken with guilt when he answered, “No, I just informed the guy that I wasn’t going to take the assignment. It was obvious that Miss Winfield was proud and didn’t want anyone around here to know of her circumstances, so what she told me was said in confidence. But I _should_   have said something because then this wouldn’t have happened to her.”

      “I’m going to need the name of that broker, Neal, and who hired him if you want to make this right,” Peter demanded.

      “I can give you the middleman’s name but not who retained him, although I may have some thoughts on that,” Neal said. “Although Miss Winfield and her husband had no children of their own, there was one distant second or third generation nephew that she told me about. Apparently he had come lurking around after her husband died to hit her up for money, but she sent him packing pretty quickly. She said he was scum, or as the ‘genteel’ lady put it so graphically, ‘The best part of that boy ran down his mother’s leg the night that he was conceived!’ He would definitely be at the top of my list of suspects. If he were desperate enough, he would probably try to do the job himself.”

      “Okay, I’ll get started looking into that,” Peter agreed. “Anything else, Neal?”

      “No, just find the person who hurt Miss Winfield, Peter. She deserved better than this,” Neal said vehemently. With that he rose from the chair and placed Peter’s gun, phone battery and handcuff key on the seat cushion, still out of Peter’s reach.

      “I’ll be leaving now,” Neal said as he backed toward the sliding glass doors, “but I’ll call room service in an hour to bring fresh towels to your room. When they get here, they can hand your things back. Oh, and Peter, the bullets from your gun and your badge are securely locked in the room safe.”

      Peter looked at Neal with a comically raised eyebrow. “Oh, do you mean the room safe whose combination you have undoubtedly changed?”

      Neal just grinned mischievously, and then disappeared. The roar of a motorcycle was all that was left of the conman.

      The next day, Peter insisted on a new avenue of investigation which proved extremely fruitful. The middleman caved under police persuasion and gave up a name who just happened to be a nephew of Audrey Winfield. Murder for hire is a death penalty issue, so the greedy relative was more than anxious to plead guilty if that was removed from the equation. The case was closed. Neal was no longer a wanted fugitive in the Golden State, at least not for murder and larceny.

      While awaiting his flight home at the airport, Peter received a call from Neal.

      “Thanks, Peter, for helping to clear my name. I’d never want anyone to believe that I was capable of something like that.”

      “Well, Neal, your insights pointed us in the right direction. Maybe you should have become a police detective instead of a criminal,” Peter said facetiously.

      There was silence on Neal’s end for a few seconds, and then he said, “Don’t laugh, Peter, but I wanted to be a policeman for a long time.”

      Peter couldn’t help himself; he let out a deep guffaw and remarked, “I can’t exactly picture you as Dudley Do-Right, Neal. I see you more as the Pink Panther.”

      “Well, that would make you Inspector Clouseau, then,” Neal sniped as he ended the call.

      Peter sighed as he recalled the character of Inspector Clouseau of the French Surete. The detective tracking the ingenious criminal dubbed the “Pink Panther” in the 1970 movies was inept, bumbling and pompous, and the only crimes he solved were by accident. “Yeah, Peter,” the FBI agent chided himself, “You walked right into that one!"                                                                                                    

 


End file.
